Christopher Ciccone, an artist and inside decorator who labored intently along with his older sister, Madonna, throughout her rise to world superstardom within the ’80s and ’90s, died Friday. He was 63. The reason for loss of life was most cancers.
In keeping with an announcement from his household, Ciccone died peacefully, surrounded by his family members, together with his husband, British actor Ray Thacker.
On Instagram Sunday, Madonna paid tribute to her brother with a publish that celebrated their shut bond and acknowledged the generally turbulent nature of their relationship.
“He was the closest human to me for thus lengthy,” wrote the pop star. “It’s onerous to explain our bond. But it surely grew out of an understanding that we have been completely different and society was going to present us a tough time for not following the established order. We took one another’s palms and we danced via the insanity of our childhood.”
Ciccone was the fifth little one and third son born to Silvio and Madonna Ciccone and was raised in Rochester, Mich., the place each his private and artistic identities bloomed to disclose an expansively inventive soul,” in accordance with his household.
After finding out dance in faculty, he moved in 1982 to New York the place Madonna, two years his senior, was already making a reputation for herself within the downtown artwork and music scene. He was a backup dancer within the video for her single, “Fortunate Star,” and performed an essential function behind the scenes on her blockbuster excursions.
Ciccone began as a dresser, serving to Madonna make fast costume adjustments between numbers, however he labored his manner as much as serving as artwork director of the provocative Blonde Ambition tour in 1990, chronicled within the documentary “Fact or Dare.” He was additionally the tour director on the Girlie Present tour in 1993. Ciccone embellished a number of of Madonna’s houses and pivoted to a profession as an inside designer. He was considered one of a number of homosexual males who had a formative affect on Madonna’s aesthetic and pop persona.
The siblings’ relationship cooled someday within the late ‘90s. Ciccone revealed a memoir, “Life With My Sister Madonna,” in 2008, wherein he claimed that their relationship was strained over inventive and monetary variations and due to her marriage to British filmmaker, Man Ritchie. However by 2012, Ciccone stated he was again on good phrases along with his sister.
In newer years, he’d moved again to Michigan, the place his household operates a winery, and continued to work as a painter and inside designer.
Ciccone’s loss of life arrives simply two weeks after his stepmother, Joan Ciccone, died of most cancers. His older brother, Anthony, died final 12 months. His mom died of breast most cancers shortly after his start in 1963.
Ciccone is survived by his sister Madonna, husband Ray Thacker and father Silvio Ciccone.
